Round 3 Transcript

I watch Silra's fingers work the wall like a lock-pick into stone, careful as a thief in broad daylight—which is exactly what we are, more or less. The storm overhead is dropping ash now instead of rain, coating everything grey and thick enough to muffle sound but still visible from the street if someone looks this way. Sister Hale's salt circle glows faintly at her feet—useless against whatever Renn claims crawls in the dark below us, but it might catch a rat or warn us about collapsing beams. "Good work," I mutter to Silra, then louder, "Sister Hale, keep that ward hot." To the elf: "Inside. Now." I step through the gap into the church proper—dust and shadow—and begin casting Detect Magic, sweeping my gaze across the main chamber for anything that might respond.

The stone scrapes loose under my fingers with a sound like teeth parting—a bad metaphor for what's going on here but fitting nonetheless. The gap widens just enough to slip through sideways. I pause midway as the wind whips ash across the ground, and turn back toward the others. "Gravedigger Renn wasn't lying about one thing," I say, keeping my voice low despite the storm noise. "Something is moving under this city. I can feel it now—the vibration isn't just from the rain." My hand rests on the hilt of my dagger reflexively. "The question is whether it's moving toward us or away."

I glance at Jeane and Sister Hale in turn, skeptical but not dismissive entirely. "If we're going to restore this place as a church, we need to know what else occupies the basement first. I'm not crawling into some crypt without knowing if there are... residents." The unholy symbol on my belt feels heavier suddenly, a physical reminder of the leverage we're attempting to wield here. "We should secure the perimeter inside before settling in for the night," I suggest, already moving toward the gap with my tools ready. "The walls might hide more than just spiders and rot."

I step through the gap Silra opened, lantern held high against the dusty dark of this abandoned house of God. The air smells of stale incense and something else—old earth and things long dead. My unholy symbol feels warm against my chest, not comforting but warning. We should've heeded that gravedigger's words more carefully than Jeane dismissed them as fear-talk. I can feel it now too—the vibration underfoot, low and rhythmic like distant drumming. "Whatever Renn claimed was down here," I say to the others, "it wasn't just drunk rambling." The floorboards creak beneath me as if responding. My hand closes around the rusted iron key from that dead magistrate—our only hope for locking this place against whatever comes up from below.